


A Ghost in the Night

by ACB1



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-24
Packaged: 2018-09-25 09:12:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9812708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ACB1/pseuds/ACB1
Summary: A secret relationship forged over time keeps Liz and Red locked in a battle of wills - who will dictate the terms, how will they weather the self-denial and jealousy that comes with keeping up appearances, and what will ultimately determine their fate?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! I haven't written anything for this fandom in a long time. I thought I'd try again. I am not sure how I feel about the show at present, but I can still dream, can't I? Thanks to all who read this.

She had had sex with him so often. There had been so, so much sex, so much love-making, too (because that was different), that she could still feel the weight of his flesh in her hands, taste the tang of his skin on her lips, feel the dips and angles of his body beneath her fingers, smell his alluring fragrance. Sometimes she would wake from a dream believing her cheek pressed against his chest with its fine hair tickling her nose. But it was never him, instead her daughter who had snuck into her warm bed late in the night to snuggle up close to her mother. And sometimes, she would reluctantly admit to herself feeling disappointed at finding the child there instead of the man. 

The man. There had been a time when she’d wanted nothing to do with him, had blamed him for every bad thing in her life. Some of it he deserved, much of it he didn’t. But then Tom had left to pursue his past, to make sense of who he was, and she had understood that need, had lived it herself. And despite all that understanding and commitment to each other and their child, the relationship soon became tenuous. The more Christopher Hargrave he became, the more she missed her schoolteacher husband Tom Keen, and the more she realized that what she wanted was the fantasy he had shown her in their early years together, as untrue and unreal as anything ever could be. She didn’t love him, not really, not anymore. But she – they – loved the little girl, and for that reason, they remained as kind to one another as any divorced couple could (including those that weren’t quite remarried in the first place).

There had been a hole then, after Tom. A void. Work couldn’t fill it. Agnes alone couldn’t either. Even her friends didn’t do the trick. Red, however, … well, Red was another story. 

In those months after Tom left, she did a lot of thinking, soul searching, if you will. She tried like hell to grow up, because all that aloneness revealed to her an uncomfortable truth – she often behaved like a petulant child. Still. Years after Sam’s death, parentless and a mother no less, she still found herself lashing out and blaming others for her own inadequacies and pain. Late one night, as she watched Agnes sleep, she decided she’d had enough. The next morning she called Red, who had become surprisingly elusive of late, and set up a meeting. 

She wanted to make amends, she’d said over coffee. She wanted him to know how she felt, that she was sorry – for so many things – and could they try to move forward in a kinder, gentler way, meaning would he let her try. 

“Of course,” was all he said. He didn’t elaborate, he didn’t ask her “Why now?” or “What’s changed?” He didn’t berate her for her past behavior. The crinkling around his eyes told her he was pleased, his fingers brushing gently across the brim of his hat told her he was curious and slightly anxious, and the pat to her hand as he stood told her the ball was now in her court. 

Sam, for all his maleness and distain for anything resembling gentle society, had taught his daughter the art of conversation, the art of the volley. “When someone starts a conversation with you, Butterball, it is your responsibility to talk back. It’s like a tennis match – they talk, then you talk. They talk, then you talk. Someone asks you a question, you answer and ask them a question. Someone hits the ball to you, and you hit it back to them. They invite you over for a sleepover, then you invite them. You see how it works?” His young daughter nodded. She understood. But in the last few years, and with Red in particular, she’d lost her game. She wanted to get it back. 

So, she invited him over – to have dinner, to have a look at Agnes’ cuckoo clock, to talk. He accepted without hesitation. And after dinner, when her little girl was asleep, before Red had swallowed the last savored bite of his chocolate cake, she did something rash. Something not in any playbook of Sam’s, certainly. She stood from her chair at the table and approached him. He looked up in surprise, but before he could question her, she had bent forward and kissed his lips. His reaction, if you could call it that, was one of stunned bewilderment. He didn’t move or speak. His eyes shone bright, but she could read that any number of ways. 

She decided not to wait for his volley, and kissed him again, tasting the cake she’d baked just for him. She placed her hands on either side of his face and with intent kissed him a third time, and finally, finally, he responded by breaking off the kiss, exhaling “Lizzie.” It wasn’t the response she wanted, but it was the one she expected. He was confused, caught off guard, uncertain of her intentions. She knew that, and she wanted to reassure him.

“I’m sorry. About so many things, I’m sorry, and I wanted to show you … but, I shouldn’t have done that … I just … I wanted to know, too, … what it was like. I wanted to see what it was like,” she admitted sheepishly. “I’m sorry, Red.”

“And?”

“And,” she echoed, lost in the movement of his mouth, afraid to look in his eyes.

“What was it like?” His deep voice. It was evocative, sultry. In that moment it both thrilled and scared her. 

She couldn’t look at his eyes now. Her own would betray her, so she kept her gaze at his mouth when she answered: “It was nice.”

“Hmmm,” he groaned disapprovingly, and his lips poked out in a pout. After a moment, his composure reclaimed, he took his finger to her chin and tilted it up. 

“Thank you for dinner, Elizabeth. It was truly magnificent.” Searching her eyes, he licked his lips. “The dessert especially.”

Her hands still on his face she could only stare back and nod. What had she done? It had been an overwhelming compulsion to kiss him, to demonstrate to him – something. Finally, coming to her senses she let go of him and stood. “I’m glad you liked it,” she said, backing away, knocking her hip painfully into the table’s edge. “I’m going to clean up. Would you mind checking on Agnes for me?”

He watched her unsteady movements as she picked up first her empty dessert plate then his. She walked the remnants of their meal into the kitchen and settled the dinnerware into the sink before he moved to check on the baby. 

Something was happening. A shift had begun, and she had started it. 

It was with hesitation that he left her apartment that night. She could see his hands fidgeting, his tongue working inside of his mouth; there was something he wanted to say; she was sure of it. Instead, as he stood at her front door to go, he looked beyond her into the dim recesses of her apartment, blinking in that way of his.

“What?” She whispered standing before him, turning her head to see what had his attention. There was nothing out of the ordinary. She turned her gaze back to him. “What is it?”

He shook his head and grimaced. “I can do better.”

“Better? I don’t understand.” She took a step closer, uncertainty coloring her statement. 

“You will.” With that, he turned toward the door, seeking its handle. She saw the rise of his shoulders as he took a deep breath before exiting her apartment. 

****************************************************************

To think back on the beginning of their “something” made her whole body tingle. It had been unexpected, blindingly intense, consuming, cathartic and beautiful in its way. He would always come to her. For two years, he would come to her – late at night, when all was quiet and dark. He’d make his way into her home, into her bed, and she would never turn him away. No matter what had happened that day at work, no matter what lingering anger she might have at him, no matter how vehemently she’d oppose him in front of others, alone, at night, she welcomed him. 

“It’s strange that this is how we can find peace with one another,” she said one night, lying against him in her rumpled bed. “Everything you do here is perfect. We are, in every way, aligned.”

She felt the chuckle building in his belly before she heard it, deep and resonant. “Indeed.”

“You know what I mean. But did you know, did you suspect, we would be this way,” she asked, rising up to look at him.

“I never allowed myself to ever think about such things,” he admitted, sobering up, all traces of laughter gone. “That wouldn’t have served us well.”

“But, Red, we are good together.”

“Here, Lizzie. We are good together here. Not everywhere. We have Agnes to think about, to protect.” 

“I know that. I understand that.”

He searched her eyes then. “Do you, my dear?”

“I do.”

************************************************************************************

After the dinner where she had kissed him, Lizzie didn’t see Red for weeks. Through Dembe she learned Red had business in Hong Kong. 

“He told me to let you know,” Dembe explained. She’d found him standing at her apartment door when she returned from work one evening. 

“Come in, Dembe. Let me get Agnes settled, and we can talk,” she said, gesturing for him to enter the apartment. 

He complied, and in minutes, she asked him the one question neither of them could answer: “Why aren’t you with him?”

“He is not himself, but I don’t know what it is. Business is good, he is safe, you are safe. He wanted to be alone. That’s all he said. I am concerned, Elizabeth.”

She sighed and sat down heavily on her sofa. “Dembe, sit,” she insisted. When he took his place in a chair across from her, she began, her head bowed and her hands clasped between her knees: “I … umm … I am afraid I did something to upset him.”

For all his steadiness, Dembe couldn’t hide his alarm at her statement. “He said nothing to me. What has happened?”

She laughed nervously and spread her hands helplessly in front of her. She raised her head to look at him. “I kissed him. On the mouth. Several times. It was … more than friendly.” 

Dembe’s head jerked back and a crease formed between his eyes. 

“Oh, God,” she continued. “I know. I’m an idiot. He reacted just like you are. When he asked, I told him the kiss was nice. That was a stupid answer.”

She closed her eyes at the memory. To put her embarrassment on display was painful. To know she had upset Red enough to make him go away and leave Dembe behind was excruciating. 

When she opened her eyes, it was to Dembe’s grin and subsequent chuckle. He stood before she could ask, before she could comprehend the swift change in his demeanor. “I understand now, Elizabeth. Thank you.”

She caught up to him as he was walking through her front door. “Wait. I don’t understand. What …”

“He’s fine. And, he’ll be back. Have a good evening, Elizabeth.”

*****************************************************************************************************

“Tom knows, Lizzie. He knows something. He and his henchmen are sniffing around. And if they don’t know about us yet, they will soon enough. I can’t have that. You and Agnes can’t have that,” Red stressed pulling on his shirt and beginning to button it up. 

“It’s four in the morning. Where are you going?” She sat up in bed and turned on the bedside lamp. 

“Agnes is nearly three, Elizabeth. Soon she’ll retain all that happens.” 

“She never sees you here at night, Red. Your visits with her are as they’ve always been. Nothing’s changed there. And I doubt Tom knows anything. Hell, I barely know when you’re here. Well, not until I feel you pressed against me. You are very stealthy,” she said with a wink. 

“It’s getting dangerous, Lizzie. It’s time to reevaluate our situation. Agnes has begun waking up at night; you go to her, but soon she will begin walking in here to you. She cannot find me here.” He found his vest and tie and put them both over his arm as he searched for his shoes. 

“It’s a phase she’s going through, Red. She’s fine. And, she loves you,” Lizzie rose from the bed and moved to stand in front of the door, blocking his way. 

“What’s really going on here, Raymond?”

“In all of this time, I have never strayed from you or my conviction that this could only work here, in this room. You have agreed with that assessment. Now the world is pushing its way in, Elizabeth, and I think we need to find a new way forward. This arrangement doesn’t work anymore,” he reached around her for the door. She grabbed his arms, gripping his biceps tightly in her hands. 

“I don’t accept what you’re saying, because it sounds like you’re saying we’re done, that this is all over. And, I don’t accept that. I won’t.”

Red brushed his thumb across her cheek, his eyes full of untamed affection. “I’m right about Tom. And I’m right about this,” he said, gesturing to the room behind him. “I’m going to miss this room … and you – for now. Take this time and think about things, Lizzie. I’ll see you at the Post Office in a few hours. I’m not disappearing.”

“Oh, really? It certainly sounds like it to me,” she said, her petulance showing. 

He pressed against her and leaning forward kissed her lips, humming his approval, before moving on to her neck. “You are divine,” he whispered. “Go back to sleep. I’ll see you soon.”

Just as she was about to protest, Agnes called out for her. Lizzie could only watch him walk away as she went to console her daughter, all the while wondering what was next, wondering how it was that he could walk away from her so easily, so casually. What did she really mean to him?


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the nice welcome back! I appreciate your kudos and comments.

Chapter 2

When Red returned from Hong Kong, his and Liz’s work continued – uninterrupted, unabated. Despite her misgivings about the kiss, despite her concern over the reason for his prolonged (and solitary) absence, Red seemed the same as ever – unapologetic in his often selfish pursuits, undaunted by the danger he put Liz and the team in, unerring in his telling of a tall tale at the most inopportune times, and, to her at least, uninterested in rehashing the night of their dinner. So, she left it alone. It was for the best, she decided. He was doing her a favor. Her behavior that night had been out of character and decidedly preposterous. She knew it, and he knew it, without a doubt.

About a month after Red’s return, a case had them in the picturesque seaside city of San Sebastian, Spain, far away from Agnes, who was left with Tom, something that unnerved Liz considering his new dangerous work and contacts. No reassurance Tom gave her helped. The older her baby got, the harder it was for Liz to leave her. 

And the truth was, the case dragged on, and soon after their arrival in Spain, Liz arrived at her wit’s end with Red’s numskull informant and his dim-witted sidekick. It was a freak show, in her opinion. And she made no secret of her disgust with the whole operation to Red, to Cooper, to anyone who would listen. She had seen Red’s eyes follow her at times, a look of what might be distress in them, but she couldn’t be bothered to stop long enough to analyze him. There were just too many other things to worry her. 

The eventual conclusion of the case had Samar and Ressler returning to D.C. with their prisoner, leaving Red, Liz and Dembe to return on Red’s jet several hours later, as Red had to tie up loose ends with his people. Liz refused to accompany Red and Dembe on their final visit to the informant; she couldn’t be in the same room with that weasel, not one more minute. She stayed at the hotel, reveling in a bath before packing up her things and heading to the hotel bar to wait for their departure. 

A live band played old swing music, and dancing couples filled the bar’s small dance floor; she couldn’t help but observe them. They looked happy, carefree, two things she could admit in that moment she wasn’t, two things she questioned she ever would be again. Watching the dancing couples as she sipped her simple tonic water made her feel old somehow and lost. And envious. She felt that, too. Oh, to be in a flowing skirt that could swish against her thighs as she was spun by a gentleman in a crisp, well-tailored suit, to be that girl who could throw her head back and laugh with abandon but somehow remain in rhythm with the music, to be pulled up close to a solid chest with a heart beating fast inside it, to feel it… 

“Lizzie.”

She jerked in her bar stool, turning her head away from the dance floor to meet Red’s questioning eyes.

“Hey,” she breathed. Caught, somehow. Exposed. 

He squinted at her, pausing before saying, “Our work is done. The jet is ready. Shall we go?”

She was slow to respond, trying to shift back into the agent she should be and failing. She turned back to the dancers, wanting one last look, wanting to hold on to their beauty and her own burgeoning melancholy, if only for a while. To him, she said, “Yeah. Let’s go.”

*********************************************************************************************

She couldn’t fall back to sleep after Red left her that morning, proclaiming their – what? – romance, affair, late-night trysts were finished. She had luck putting Agnes back down, but she couldn’t turn off her brain and, dare she say, her heart to what this might mean. They would work together, and that’s it? They would become platonic again after so long being something far from it? He would leave again? He would ignore her? Worse than all this was the kernel of doubt that he found her lacking now, that he had tired of her, that she was not worth the risk to them both, that she was not so special after all. But, then she looked at Agnes, asleep again in her crib, a bed she had all but outgrown, and realized that deep down she knew whatever she and Red had been doing had always had a shelf life. It had been finite and so narrowly defined as to be easily dealt a death blow. A relationship confined to a space, within the four walls of her bedroom or nowhere? Such a thing could not be expected to survive. 

Liz had never dwelled on the what ifs in any relationship she’d ever had with a man. This had always been to her detriment. With Red, though, the possibilities did enter her mind from time to time, but she quelled them, filling her thoughts with more pleasant pursuits – what she would wear to bed, what time he might arrive, should she buy an expensive perfume because she knew he would love it. It had been easy with him. Everything she did pleased him; she felt cherished, she felt – loved. 

Entering the post office that morning, she felt butterflies churning in her stomach. She was nervous, of what exactly she couldn’t say. Encountering a different Red, maybe? The jitters increased after her morning coffee. The day went on, however, and no Red. She had lunch with Ressler, who noticed she was off: “What gives, Keen? You sick or something?” “No. No. I’m fine. Agnes keeps waking up at night. I’m just tired,” she shrugged.

By 3 p.m., she nearly jumped out of her skin when he appeared at her office door. “Agent Keen.” 

She swallowed, and her heart hammered in her chest. Her mouth had gone dry, so she licked her lips before speaking: “Reddington.”

He nodded at her before turning to Ressler, and without addressing him, proceeded with the business at hand: “I’ve spent today chasing a rabbit down a hole, but never fear, I caught him and found my way out in due time. In other words, after some doing, I have a blacklister for you. A nasty little fellow who has lied and cheated his way to quite a fortune, and while I respect the entrepreneurial spirit, in this case some of the means do not justify the end. You can find him tonight in a basement underneath Snell’s Bar and Grill, a deplorable establishment that manages to consistently screw up a simple club sandwich. For the life of me, I don’t understand how …”

“Reddington,” Liz halted his story with a raised hand. “Why do we want this guy? How about some specifics.”

“Cooper has them. Now, good afternoon you two.” He turned, replacing his hat on his head. 

“Cooper? Since when do you bypass Keen here for Cooper? Is there something special about this guy?” Ressler looked from Red to Liz.

“Ah,” Red nodded. “Donald, better to spend your time questioning my blacklister than me. Wouldn’t you agree, Agent Keen?” With that, he left the office and made his way down the stairs. 

“What the hell’s wrong with him? You two have a fight or something, Keen?”

Liz avoided his gaze and stood, reaching for her coat. “Let’s go talk to Cooper. I don’t want to waste time analyzing Reddington’s behavior.”

“Agreed.” Ressler followed her out. 

**********************************************************************************

After Spain, there was a lull, and then there was Kiev. Kiev. She shouldn’t have gone. It was an undercover job, and she was assured Samar and Red could handle it, with Ressler and other law enforcement as back up. “Stay home with Agnes, Lizzie,” Red had said, all kindness. She’d agreed until she’d heard the job wasn’t going as planned. Then she took the first plane out, along with Cooper. 

Samar had been compromised. Someone had recognized the Mossad agent, and it was only a matter of time before Red was outed and the whole operation came apart. Liz was to go in and, in a certain sense, rescue Red. She was to seduce him. Why? Because on such short notice, it was the best plan they could come up with, and if Red played along, the simplest and quickest.

So, armed with all the intel she needed and a gun strapped to her thigh, Liz sidled up to Red at the bar of an upscale Kiev hotel, where the suspect was to arrive at any moment. “Can I buy you a drink?” She was all coyness and smoky voiced, and the minute he turned to her she knew he disapproved, absolutely. 

“I’m fine. Thank you.” His eyes traveled the length of her, taking in her low neckline, the skin-tight red dress with its slit well beyond what should be acceptable. “I’m waiting for someone.”

“Oh? Well, maybe she isn’t coming. Maybe this is your lucky night.” She closed the gap between his ear and her mouth, whispering, “Come upstairs with me. Now. You’re compromised.”

He laughed that seductive and dangerous laugh of his, and kissed her neck, humming as he did it. 

“Hmmm. Maybe it is. Shall we go upstairs, then, my dear?” 

Liz giggled, running her hand down his lapel. “I think that’s a great idea. Let me grab my purse.” She reached for it on the bar, but he snatched it up first and reached for her hand. “Let me help you,” he said, and then kissed her cheek. She stood slowly from the bar stool, unsteady for a moment and needing to pull down her short dress that had crept up her thighs. Red would have none of that; he pulled her up and walked briskly to the elevator hand in hand with her. When the elevator arrived, he let go of her hand to place his palm possessively against the small of her back. She could have sworn he even pushed her a little. 

She pushed the button for the 10th floor, thwarting Red’s attempt to push the button to his floor. The other couple occupying the elevator stared at their play for power. “Come on, Baby. Let’s try my room this time, hmm,” she said, pushing herself back and against him, smiling seductively. He brought his arm around her waist and pulled her tighter to him. He’s angry, she thought, she knew, but this game had to be played out. 

They preceded the other couple out of the elevator, and Red continued to hold Liz by the waist, though his hold had become more natural, and his hand settled around her hip. He only let go of her once the hotel room door had securely closed behind them. 

Without turning to her, he opened her clutch and searched it. 

“What are you doing,” she demanded. 

“Who’s listening to us,” he asked. 

“Cooper, Ressler, I don’t know who else,” she said, frustrated in her need to tell him what was happening. 

“Where?”

“What?” He was unnerving her. 

“Where is the device?” 

She reached into the cleavage of her dress and pulled it out to show him, perplexed. 

He grabbed it out of her hand and spoke directly into the microphone: “You’ve achieved your objective. I left Dembe in the bar. Find him. Let him guide you to the suspect. He was never coming. I knew that.”

With that, he dropped the listening device onto the carpet and crushed it with the toe of his shoe.

“What? You knew about Samar? How? And why did you ruin my equipment?” She was confused, incensed.

He stepped up closer to her, openly assessing her dress, or lack of it. “You should be more subtle, Elizabeth,” he said, his voice low and dripping with something close to distain. “I typically would ignore your type, to be honest. Too obvious, too needy, too ready. There’s no challenge there. Don’t try so hard. Let me come to you. Play hard to get. With more experience, you’d know this.”

“Like Samar,” she said, chilling under his chastisement. 

“Yes. She understands the game,” he nodded. “There’s an art to it. A delicacy that must be maintained.”

“Well, next time, I’ll try harder,” she said, turning away. 

“There will be no next time,” Red said decisively, poking out his lips and breathing through his nose. “No next time.”

Turning back to him, angry and slightly ashamed, she stepped up close to him. She took a moment to really look at his face. “Because I’m no good at this? Or, is it maybe, just maybe, that I’m too good at it? Hmm, Red? Maybe that’s what bothers you. Maybe I’m so good at this undercover seductress bit that I can farm myself out across the agency? What do you think? I could invest in all kinds of slinky dresses and skimpy underwear, four-inch heels. Maybe I could …”

“Stop it. Now.” He was seething she realized. 

“Or, what?” Her dejection and disgust were showing through. 

“This is not what I wanted. This is not how I wanted this to happen. Remember that, Elizabeth,” he pleaded, leaning into her, inhaling. “My God, you smell divine.” He kissed her neck first, then her collarbone. “Your skin is luminous.” He stood again and looked at her mouth. “And your lips. Luscious.” He kissed them so gently. He broke the kiss and placed his hands on her hips, looking down between them. “Your dress is an abomination, but all I can think about is what’s underneath it. You opened the door to this, Lizzie, when you kissed me, and now it’s unhinged.” He kissed the corner of her mouth gently. “And, you’re right, Lizzie. You’re right. You are too good at this, and that’s why you can never do this again.” He kissed her again, deeply, fully, gripping her waist,


End file.
